


Nightlife

by Nadler



Category: Night at the Museum (Movies)
Genre: First Kiss, M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-07-26 09:14:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7568581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nadler/pseuds/Nadler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not a surprise: Jed's not the hand-holding type. If he thinks about it, this isn't a surprise, either, but he's not going to think about this much. It works. That's good enough for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nightlife

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aurilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aurilly/gifts).



> I had fun writing this. I hope you like it, aurilly. I really liked your prompts, but, well, this is what happened. /o\

They have a buddy system now that they get room to roam in the museum. It's not demeaning, though Larry definitely acted like it when he told them they had to have one. It's smart, Jed concedes. His boys mostly travel in a pack, anyway.

But Jed draws the line at having to be leashed with a rubber band. And he still ain't sure why he ended up with Octavius as his buddy.

Still, after they stop their latest round of fighting because the Romans kept coughing from a new mixture of smoke bombs one of the miners cooked up, they regroup. As a rule, they mostly keep to themselves, but none of them hate each other by now. Mostly, they complain about horses and food because it’s the pastime of any men camped down for a while.

"Lookee here," Jed says, pacing between one rock and other. Octavius has one foot planted on another one so his cape billows dramatically. "It's my turn to call the shots."

Octavius only frowns in annoyance, and Jed can only really tell it apart from his normal face because he raised the eyebrow. The worst part is, he keeps wanting to expose Jed to some so-called _culture_.

"Is it? I think not." 

Jed racks his brains for a little, and well, he might be right. They’ve been switching off weeks, now. He crosses his arms. He’ll play fair. 

"Just so you know, I'm not stepping in one of those hoity-toity high-falutin' French paintings," Jed protests loudly. It doesn’t quite echo enough to disturb the caged Mayan diorama. "I can't understand a lick of what they're saying."

"And yet I manage to speak to you without difficulty," the helmet-wearing snot says, but even he complains about getting a rig up to launch them into some of the hanging portraits. Twice was enough, Jed thinks.

"I heard that."

"You were meant to hear," Octavius mutters, but he sighs and lets Jed be. Even if he is going to take them to some of the more boring corners of the museum. Hell, Octavius likes it when Jed takes them to blow some firecrackers or rope some critters or examine the rooms full of various weaponry. Maybe some of that is trying to correct his damn sword technique just because he doesn’t fence fancily, but he’ll take it.

They walk a couple of halls in silence before Jed can’t take it anymore. “You sure? Where are we going? Are we going to get lost in the vents again?” Okay, that might’ve been Jed’s fault last time, but the time before that was definitely Octavius’s.

“Trust me. My sense of direction is impeccable. I will not lose you,” Octavius says, in a way that doesn’t answer Jed’s question at all. He pauses a little bit, dramatically turning his head to the wall and listens. Jed tries not to shake his head. “This way.”

“Then what are we doing?” Asking a man like Jedediah to trust anyone is a tall order. He’s the wild spirit of the West, chasing the frontier. He doesn’t mind the not knowing, but, it’s better if they did. No one likes walking through a trap.

“Avoiding a danger,” he says. “Keep an eye on that shadow.”

“What shadow? Something’s been stalking us this entire time?” Jed furiously whispers. “Can’t you warn a guy?”

“A fearsome beast. We must stay calm.”

If this’s another damn squirrel, Jed does not want to be the one who says Octavius can’t keep this one. He moped for days.

They stop at the Hall of Gems and Minerals. Jed can respect the place with a moment of pause. It only lasts a moment. He’s not above admiring some nuggets of gold, but that got old in the first few months.

Most people are distracted by shiny things, Jed included. “So this is to confuse the thing following us?”

“Also, they are nice to look at,” Octavius adds, a stray beam of light managing to highlight the color of his eyes. Not that Jed's noticing. 

Well, he can’t argue with that.

They walk across the hall, climbing over a couple shinier bits of gems. Jed makes a face through a particularly clear gem, and Octavius laughs. They rearrange some of the smaller gems into interesting shapes. Jed regrets biting a couple of the minerals. This might be one of Octavius’s better ideas.

But it has been a couple of hours. And still no sign of what was following them. Jed narrows his eyes. “Octavius.”

“What is it?” Octavius asks, turning his head to look at a constellation flying overhead. The light glittered through a couple larger crystals.

“Where’s everyone else?” The more he thought about it, the more he thought it was a ruse. And he’s hurt, Jed realizes, because they haven’t done that kind of thing to each other in years. Still, he swore the rest of the guys had just been behind them.

“Oh,” Octavius clears his throat. He shifts from foot to foot. “So you noticed.”

Jed narrows his eyes. Octavius is supposed to be his _buddy_ and not lie to him. If you couldn’t trust your buddy not to put a scorpion in your boots, who could you trust? They only go into the turf wars in their hall and only when everyone is at full strength.

No need to make up something so that Jed would go along. “Don’t we have an understanding?” he starts.

“We do,” Octavius insists, except Jed can’t see how he can still believe that.

“Don’t see how so—“

Octavius lunges. Jed can wrassle with the best of them, but fuck, that armor is heavier than the last time. Jed manages to elbow Octavius, and they get tangled up. “Let go of me,” he says, struggling to pry away.

And then they’re lifted up, and Jed dares to look down. He sees paws on tile. He feels the jump and the ground is further away.

“Could have said it was a cat!” No, he is not squirming, but he’s dangling.

“Stay still!” Octavius counters, “It can smell fear.”

“It’s already got us. Don’t see how it could get worse.” Unless it drops them. Jed’s not fond of the thought of falling. “Don’t let go.”

“I would never,” Octavius says, but at least if his cape rips and they drop, Jed’s probably cushioning the fall.

It’s oddly relaxing for a minute or two, actually. Until the cat gets spooked by the ghost and drops them with a muffled thud.

“Oh, sorry.” The slightly translucent figure of Benedict Arnold peers down at them. “Everything okay?”

“It’s alright.” Jed brushes his pants off when he gets up, right before giving Octavius a hand up.

Jed supposes he might owe Octavius an apology. Nah, Jed decides, picking up his hat and dusting it off. He doesn’t. He shrugs. Octavius shrugs back. Then, Jed extends his hand out for a fistbump. Octavius bumps back.

“So, where to?” The night isn’t quite over yet. Jed slings an arm around Octavius’s shoulder, nudging a cat hair out of his red plume. They swerve around a passing arrow, yelling a little more than Jed’d ever admit.

Benedict Arnold only frowns when one goes right through his shoulder. He huffs and floats away. “I’m telling Larry about this.”

“There’s some real danger!” A bunch of hoofbeats pass by, and there’s the sound of Gigantor yelling something at a caveman. “Or not.”

“We have to rally the troops,” Octavius declares. “They should have been back by now.”

“We joining the fray or fightin’ for mining rights?” Jed asks, backing away from Octavius. His hand rests on his pistol for a moment, but then he decides to lean on some blue crystal instead. “But where did they scamper off to, if they didn’t follow us?”

“Another day we will fight over paving stones,” he promises, waving off. “They’re baking bread.”

“Bread,” Jed says, incredulously.

“The new exhibit has a clibanus.”

Jed stares. “What’s that in not-Latin?”

“A fancy oven,” Octavius explains. “Made of clay.”

“They going to share that bread?” Jed asks, and he idly wonders where they got the ingredients. “Let’s go see.”

Usually there’s a crowd around new exhibits, but this one is boring, just things. Not even the kind of things that come alive, no carvings to swirl around, even. An oven, a chair, some rocks. A table. Plates. Boring.

“It’s just a kitchen.” Jed’s severely underwhelmed.

“It’s a Roman kitchen,” Octavius insists. “And my men are baking bread.”

Before the night ends, they have to get back to the Hall of Miniatures, and they do with an hour or so to spare. They don’t want a repeat of getting lost and waking up in a dang box. Octavius complains about the sand getting into his armor, but he didn’t have to come to Jed’s doorstep if he didn’t want to.

“What, you’re not going to kiss me goodbye?” Jed jokes.

Octavius doesn’t grab him by the collar or nothing, but he does move. Presses his lips to Jed’s with quick, perfunctory movement, quick as a rabbit darts.

He didn’t think he’d actually do it. Jed thinks about it a little. It’s nothing. They’re weird in the diorama over; he knows they kiss to say hello and goodbye—he’s seen not a single one of them bat an eyelash at it. It lasted half a second. He’s not upset. He thought they’d covered it in their talk about personal space.

Or maybe he was too busy repeating how talking about his guns makes him feel inadequate. That point got hammered home.

Jed breaks the silence. He eyes Octavius. He does not linger on his lips, which don't even twitch or nothing. “You’re not going to try to hold my hand or nothing, are you?”

Octavius gives him a look. Jed can see him try to say something but only to end up turning away. “Good morning, Jedediah.”

He walks away, and Jed’s heart is still beating up a storm. They hadn’t talked about it before, and they’re not talking about it now. It’s nothing.

-

It’s not _not_ nothing. It is sort of nothing, in the way that Octavius doesn’t act any different.

Jed just pushes thoughts of it away; it’s easy, like how the knowledge of lonely nights on the frontier can be pushed away. It’s probably not healthy, he realizes, but he doesn’t want to unpack that right now.

What he wants to do is bug someone to go into the city with him. Risky business like that takes planning, considering what’s out there—pigeons, squirrels, giants on bicycles, giant cars. Jed lays out a map, requisitions string and starts planning routes.

Octavius just stands to the side and watches him. “Where does this trip end?”

Okay, Jed’s man enough to admit that Octavius’s ugly mug ain’t all that ugly. And that this isn’t a huge revelation. It was easier to ignore it before.

“It’s a surprise,” he says, wiping his brow. “You’ll just have to come with me and find out.”

“Where you planning on going alone?”

“Not really.” Jed kicks one of the weights holding down the map. “We got something to do today? Something new? I got bored.”

And that’s how Octavius manages to talk Jed into walking into another damn painting.

It’s on loan from another museum, and it’s a painting of a museum. At least, for once, everyone around them is normal sized, but Jed doesn’t quite get the point. “Why paint a painting inside a painting?”

“Fucking American tourists,” some passerby says. “No appreciation at all.”

“I feel insulted,” Octavius says. “And I’m not American.”

“You’re insulted? I’m insulted!” Jed frowns. “Let’s get out of here.”

Jed’s sense of direction might not be as good as he likes, because they’re walking out of the museum. There’s flowers in front. A few couples pass by, holding hands. It’s all too bright and sappy for Jed’s tastes.

There’s even a mime on the corner.

Octavius looks like he wants to pretend he doesn’t know him, and that’s fine, Jed guesses. Jed goes up to the mime and starts up a challenge. He wins their little staring contest. “Yeah, slink away, what are you looking at?”

The mime looks like he’s holding an umbrella or something against the wind.

Octavius taps Jed on the shoulder. He waits.

“Okay,” Jed says. He’s trying. “You, uh, wanna see the flowers?”

-

The journey into New York a week later goes off without a hitch. It involves roping one of the birds into carrying the sling, hitching a ride on a horse. They also improvise; no one should just leave a skateboard lying around unused—wasn’t right, so Jed commandeers that.

They’re tucked into the nearest opera house.

It’s a love story, Jed thinks. He can’t understand any of it, but that’s what it looks like. Octavius flips through one of the little opera books, probably trying to hide it.

The way Jed figures it, boy meets girl, boy kills someone, boy has to leave town, girl cries. It’s not that hard to follow. Probably.

“This girl can sing her lungs out,” he says, nudging Octavius with his shoulder.

“It’s called an aria,” he whispers.

“That supposed to mean something to me?”

“Not really,” he says, leaning on Jed.

Onstage, there’s a hug. Everyone’s happy, or at least sounds like they are. Jed thinks it’s a good ending.

Octavius’s hand sits there, an obvious attempt at something, and Jed thinks he’s only starting to know what that means. Still.

It doesn't have to be now-or-never, Jed realizes, but it's a pretty good shot right now.

“No, I’m not going to hold your hand,” Jed says, waving it off. Octavius visibly droops, and that’s enough, he thinks.

It doesn't have to be now-or-never, Jed realizes, but it's a pretty good shot right now. “But if you’re going to kiss me goodnight, kiss me like you mean it.”

There’s a moment where Jed thinks he’s done the stupidest thing by opening his mouth, and he can’t have read Octavius wrong, could he? The man ain’t subtle. That only lasts for a moment.

Jed thinks it’s weird that Octavius grabs him by the ears, but he’ll take it.

The curtains close on the stage, there’s cheering and some flower-throwing, but they’re a little busy to notice that part of the show.

-

Larry’s used to having to clean up before the museum opens. No matter how much he tries, there’s always something out of place. He cleans up some stray feathers, makes sure there’s no junk food in the exhibits, and puts things back into place as much as he can. At least he’s not scraping gum off the stone guy today.

He takes a cursory look around the Hall of Miniatures. Yeah, he’s learned his lesson from the Octavius in the stocks incident. He blinks at Jed and Octavius now. Larry doesn’t know if he wants to risk untangling them.

Larry nudges them over behind a building. He doesn’t think they want the world to see them.


End file.
